Evaluating the features and benefits of your marketing plan

When you first opened your business you most likely wrote a business plan to outline how you planned to run your business, it included everything from the name of your company to cash flow projections. You might have thought that your plan writing days were over, but guess what; you now have to write a marketing plan to map out how you plan to market your company. Most companies will create more than one marketing plan just in case the first one doesn't work; this provides them with something to fall back on.

So perhaps you are wondering how you are supposed to evaluate the features and benefits of your original marketing plan so you know if you need to fall back to a different marketing plan. Well the good news is that if you take the time to create a marketing plan then you will also include ways to know if your marketing plan is working or if you are going to need to try something else. The reason for this is that the last step in creating any marketing plan is to include a way that the effectiveness of the marketing plan is going to be measured, basically what this means is that you will be listing ways to measure if your marketin

Here are the steps on how to create an original and fall back marketing plan.

Step one:
The first step to creating an original marketing plan is to clearly define the company's goals. Having goals that are concrete, which means they are actually attainable, is the main part of developing your marketing plan because it is going to tell you exactly what you are trying to accomplish. If you don't know what you want to accomplish then you are not going to know what steps are needed for a plan. Defining your company's goals helps to steer the development of all marketing activities, including but not limited to press related activities, advertising campaigns, and promotions. An example of a marketing goal would be to increase the company's market share by 2% during a twelve month period. This tells you clearly what you want to do and how long you have to accomplish the goal.

Step two:
The second step of creating a market plan is to conduct market research. Market research can be done by using the internet, library, focus groups, surveys, research from an established market research company, or other ways. When conducting market research you are going to want to gather information about the target market (existing size and anticipated growth rate, demand of the product or service, etc.), as well as getting information about the potential customers. Your research should also include the history of the market and the various trends that are within the market. If your company is launching a new product you might not be able to obtain any historical data, but you can see what historical data is available from similar industries. And don't forget when doing market research you are going to want to include a thorough analysis of the competition.

Step three:
After completing the first two steps you are ready to move onto the third step which involves choosing marketing activities. Choosing the marketing activities is the last step because you have to have your goals in mind and understand the market so that you can choose the activities that will allow you to achieve your goals. When choosing your marketing activities you are going to need to consult your marketing budget to see what you have to spend on your activities, price can play a big factor in determining what marketing activities you are going to use. The more traditional types of marketing activities are television, radio, newspaper, and magazine advertisements, while your less conventional activities include online banner bars and buttons, newsletters, press releases, and trade show exhibits. The most important thing you will have to consider when choosing your activities is to make sure that the ads you create reflect the specific marketing goals and objectives.

Step four:
Many companies also include in their marketing plan an explanation of how the effectiveness of marketing activities will be measured. This is included so that companies can figure out which ads are working and which ones might need to be readdressed to gain more of a response. Not to mention it will help you evaluate the features and benefits of your entire marketing plan.